The proposal of De La Salle Bro Armin Luistro, the incumbent education secretary, to extend the basic education cycle into 12 year cycle isn’t likely achieve the purported goals. [Sorry, but I have to part ways with my alma mater, assuming DLSU adheres to Bro. Luistro’s stand].
According to the Inquirer.net,
“The current thinking is if you don’t finish with a college degree, there is something missing. But in basic education, the operative term is basic, and what is basic is that they should be able to live a meaningful life, be prepared to start a family, be productively employed,” Luistro said.”
Will an additional 2 years of education guarantee that students will become productively employed? The answer is NO. Instead, what such policy will guarantee is that schools, particularly the elite schools, will be assured of additional revenues.
Yet, isn’t 10 years enough to instill basics?
Table From Alabama Cooperative Extension: What Are Employability Skills?
Many of the employable skills are actually self-learned from actual occupational experiences than from a classroom setting. This includes high-order thinking skills and personal qualities in that come in relation with people relations management.
Adding practical skills to the curriculum will not likely enhance for the simple reason that the students won’t get the desired experience of real work pressures until they get formally employed. Employers will unlikely put pressure on people whom are not committed to them. For instance, at On the Job Training (OJT) with companies, students will merely be given the least sensitive job, and thus, will hardly imbue so-called required skills.
This would be analogous to teaching people how to swim in the swimming pool (controlled setting) when what is needed is how to survive the open seas (variable conditions).
Another example would be competition, you can’t exhaustively teach competitive skills in the classroom or practical class, but from the rigors of the real world.
In addition, Bro. Luisito isn’t dealing with reality but dabbles instead with statistics.
Again from the Inquirer,
``While a large percentage of families could not afford to send their children to college, the current basic education cycle is inadequate in giving students employable skills, Luistro noted.
``Only 16 percent of the student population finish college while 84 percent leave school at different stages, Luistro noted.
Yet, despite this, the Philippines has one of highest educational attainment in Asia that’s according to the ADB’s 2007 Education and structural change in four Asian countries
“Of the four countries studied in this chapter, India is the least educated. Thais are slightly less educated than Indonesians, and Filipinos are the most highly educated. Three of the four countries have aggressively pursued increases in education levels, especially at the secondary level, during the period under consideration. Around 90% of Thai secondary education is privately provided. The corresponding figure is 20% for the Philippines, down from 32% in the mid-1990s, and roughly 40% for India and Indonesia”
You see, the problem isn’t much about employable skills, but about that the lack of investments that spurs the job creation. In short, it’s the lack of jobs.
Let say Bro Luisito can produce many employable skilled workers alright, but absent jobs these employable skilled workers will remain unemployed.
Importantly, I see Bro Luisito protecting the interests of the elites by introducing anti-competitive provisions,
Again from the same inquirer article,
“While not everyone will end up with a degree that is very, very academic, we recognize now more than ever that for nation-building, our high school program should look at [offering] different tracks to be able to address the many needs and gifts of students,” Luistro said, describing this as a “multi-intelligence” approach.
“For instance, certain high schools could specialize in the arts, partner with the Technical Education and Skills Development Authority for technical-vocational courses, or the Philippine Sports Commission to develop a more sports-oriented curriculum.
The new provisions would effectively mandate affiliations with “specialty partners”, thus schools that don’t meet the criteria would be forced out of the playing field. This means that the school big leaguers would be the major beneficiaries from the new law.
Besides where he claims that the new law will “address the many needs and gifts of students” is in contrary to his earlier statement saying that the law will “conform with global standards”. How does uniformity (global standards) harmonize with individuality (many needs and gifts) [unless our children will get transformed into automatons]?
Finally, Bro. Luisito claims that there won’t be added financial burdens.
Of course, he saying this, because he isn’t paying for it. To paraphrase Warren Buffett, this would be like asking a barber if you need a haircut.
Again from the inquirer,
“Luistro dismissed fears that the expanded elementary and high school period in the only country with a 10-year basic education cycle would be a financial burden to parents.”
I have NO direct figures to make a comparison of the inflation of the private primary and secondary school levels.
Table From PIDS: College Fee Structure and Fee Inflation
Nevertheless, the table above from PIDS, gives us some insights on why there have been huge college drop-out rate, as well as, the rate of inflation that encompass private college courses.
Bottom line: in contrast to Bro. Luisitro’s claim, there will be material financial burden to families, be it directly (as above) or indirectly (as below). This will particularly onerous to low income levels.
Graph From The ADB’s Hyun Son Has Inflation Hurt the Poor?
In other words, this would mean additional load for families to sustain the burden of carrying children through additional 2 years of the 12 year basic cycle, which doesn’t guarantee anything but huge revenues for the big league schools.
The other way to say it, is that expect more tuition fee increases for schools to meet such mandates!
Is this the change we’ve been looking for-more politicization of education for the benefit of a few?
